In Pakistan these days, a strange kind of schizophrenia is afoot, as the excitement over completing five, fulsome years of democratic rule competes with a growing tension with Afghanistan. Over the past couple of weeks, Pakistani officials and Afghan leaders have accused each other of fomenting terrorism, disturbingly raising the pitch and dropping all pretence […]
FEW outside Kabul are as powerful as the governor of Balkh, a province in northern Afghanistan. Win an audience with Atta Mohammad Noor and you are left in little doubt of his status. He receives guests from a golden throne at the end of a long hall hung with chandeliers. His word exerts iron control […]
The 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is fast approaching. China has just over a year before Afghanistan fades from the West’s radar and Western attention toward the country shrinks substantially. However, it is not clear that Beijing has properly considered what it is going to do once NATO forces leave and pass […]
The narcotics trade is ruining Afghanistan and spreading death and addiction around the world. Kabul needs a new approach to the problem — and neighboring Iran happens to offer a great model. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
If ever a reminder was needed of the slippery nature of the grounds on which India-Pakistan relations are played out, a most recent offering is the Washington-based Wilson Center study on India-Pakistan trade. Fairly up to speed on bilateral relations, by recording developments as recent as November 2012, the study has already been rendered outdated […]
Last month Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, told the Wall Street Journal that he expects the country to start exporting oil as early as this year. Mr. Shahrani explained that oil wells in the Amu-Darya Basin in northern Afghanistan, while currently producing no oil, will have an output level of 25,000 barrels of oil a day by […]
As the U.S. and coalition forces prepare to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, with all combat forces out by the end of 2014, the governments of Central Asia are bracing for a possible spillover of instability from their south. Ostensibly to help Central Asian countries protect themselves against the Islamist radicals that may gain strength in […]
On a table in the office of a senior Indian diplomat sits an unusual piece of memorabilia: a baseball bat. It is signed not by members of the official’s favourite baseball team, but by the U.S. officials who participated in the inaugural session of the now well-established consultations between India and the United States on […]
If Pakistan’s former president, General Pervez Musharraf, returns to the country tomorrow — as he has promised, ending five years of exile — many Pakistanis will find it hard to reject him simply for his undemocratic past. Musharraf’s planned return may remain surrounded by uncertainty till the last moment, given that he has previously promised […]
The atmospherics surrounding Xi Jinping’s coming trip to Russia – his first visit to a foreign country as China’s new president – remind me of a slogan from my early childhood in the late 1950’s: “Russia-China, Friendship Forever.” The irony is that, even in that slogan’s heyday, Sino-Russian relations were deteriorating fast, culminating in spasms […]
looking beyond borders 